There’s a real problem of being fatigued through overconsumption. It feels like as a culture we’re maxing out: we now have access to an endless pleasure funnel. If you have the means, you can gorge on all the music, movies, television and food you want. There is so much of everything. It’s perpetuating a practice of going-until-you-can’t, exhausting yourself and starting all over again. It never stops. There’s always “infinite content”.This is the thesis of Arcade Fire’s new album Everything Now.

Arcade Fire are one of the last bands to be born before the culture of critical mass, releasing one critically acclaimed record after another, culminating in a Grammy for Album of the Year for 2010’s The Suburbs. Every one of their releases has been an event, a sort of take on the modern blockbuster. You know when it’s coming, you know what it’s about. You’re immersed. The records themselves – always a little stuffed to the gills and a little long. Let’s be real: there’s always a few bummer tracks. While 2013’s Reflektor was actually a really great late-night dance record, it often got maligned self-indulgent.

Self-Indulgent? Isn’t that what got them here in the first place? Isn’t that what we want?

Pretty succinctly, Everything Now is a solid Arcade Fire record, and at this point in time, that’s good enough. From the title track where Win Butler singing about “Every room in my house is filled with shit I couldn’t live without” to the middle-era Talking Heads groove of “Signs of Life,” these are some of the more accessible singles they’ve put out in a long time. Then, with one of the best tracks is the synth boom of “Creature Comfort” where Butler and Regine Chassagne talk about the desire of those who want to be famous, and if they can’t, dead. It gets real meta: “Assisted suicide/She dreams about dying all the time/She told me she came so close/Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record.” This sort of self-awareness from such an image-conscious group is a bit jarring.

“Chemistry” sounds pretty hokey at first, but then there’s a weird butt rock breakdown midway through that’s irresistible to want to play over and over. “Electric Blue” is a breezy showcase for Chassagne, but it doesn’t quite pack the emotional punch of her earlier tracks, like “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” from The Suburbs.

The album both begins and ends with a track called “Everything Now (Continued)”. Both songs feature a tired Butler singing “I’m in the black again/Not coming back again/We can just pretend/We’ll make it home again/From everything now.” The difference is that opener builds towards what ends up being the title track, while the closer the other forms a horn swell and cuts off abruptly. If the songs are left to repeat, the end of the album loops with the beginning. The album doesn’t truly begin or end until you’ve had enough.

It’s literally “Everything Now”. It is infinite content. Wait to for the prompt to ask “Are you still watching?”

Before blogs, music websites and Tumblr, LiveJournal was the place where angsty teenagers gathered to pirate music, post bad poetry and connect with others who felt the same. That time – 2003, to be exact – was when I joined a community called “redletterday,” named after the 1997 Get Up Kids EP of the same name, that was dedicated to lyrics that users related to or just wanted to share in an effort to be internet cool. Words were often posted without attribution, but I’d fall in love with them just the same. But then a set of lyrics appeared: “by definition/a crush must hurt/and they do/just like the one I have on you.” That’s the story of how I discovered “Long Island” by that dog.

I couldn’t believe that a band could so eloquently articulate the feelings I couldn’t. It spoke to my fifteen-year-old heart – while many of my friends were diving into relationships for the first time, often with boys I too had a crush on, I was crying to NSYNC songs. I wish I was kidding. Unable to open up, I was left alone to brood over them on Friday nights with only my tenor saxophone and my bass clarinet and a dial-up connection. For my entire sophomore year of high school, I played the song over and over. It didn’t occur to me at the time that they might have more music.

Eventually, I discovered Retreat From The Sun, the album “Long Island” is from. It sounded different than anything I’d been listening to until that point. Until then, my Napster queue was full of New Found Glory, The Movielife or any number of Drive-Thru Records bands. What set them apart is that they were girls. Sure, I could relate to sappy Something Corporate piano jams, but it wasn’t my voice. Anna Waronker and the Haden sisters had a way with words that spoke to me in a way I understood – and that bands made of boys never could.

Album opener “Annie” was familiar to a high schooler – “can we take your car/‘cause I don’t have one,” even if the rest of the song felt so alien. I didn’t know what a breakup felt like, but I knew wanting someone to take me out. In “Being With You,” Waronker sings of emptiness and pining over someone’s continued rejection. Whenever I would silently long for a classmate (without any ounce of action to pursue them) it really did feel like a cold rejection – how did this band know? “I sit with emptiness waiting for your call/an open phone line, but I still hit your walls” seems pretty pedestrian now, but at the time, it felt like I was the only girl in the world willing a phone to ring.

Despite a song like “Hawthorne” being pretty short of a revelation, lyrics like “Driving/Looking for your parents house/Striving/To find a piece of you/And I saw a punk rock show/In a car garage/And I saw you” felt like something I could have poured into a composition book on the way to a VFW hall show. Even more” adult” tracks “Minneapolis” filled me with longing. I wanted to sit around at the bar and date the touring musician! I wanted to go to the Low show! (And I definitely still wanted that car.) The title track talks about “younger people happy,” and I just wanted to jump through the computer to tell Anna that not all younger people were, that those people must be imposters.

Of course, by the time I found that dog., they’d already broken up, and it was years before I dove any deeper into their catalog. But Retreat From the Sun was the first time that I was able to get a glimpse of what my future might be like. A time where boys reciprocated my feelings, stories about my time spent in bars, the one night stands I had, what it was like to have a hangover and what a breakup feels like. Not all of those things are good, and they weren’t to go through, but for that girl stuck at home on a Friday night, the promise of those experiences were everything. For a while it was just enough to scrawl that lyric from “Long Island” in all of my notebooks. But what it really taught me is that I had a voice, that girls could make rock music, and made me think that maybe I had a musical future beyond the nerdy woodwinds. For that, I’m grateful and I’ll never forget it.

If you’ve followed the career of Katie Crutchfield and her albums under the name Waxahatchee, it’s clear that she never rests on her laurels. Whether it’s the lo-fi intimacy of American Weekend, the assured full-band sound of Cerulean Salt or the atmospherics of Ivy Tripp, each record shows Crutchfield confidently adapting new elements to her sound. On her latest, Out in the Storm, Crutchfield doubles down, making Waxahatchee’s best album to date.

The album was recorded last December in Philadelphia with producer John Agnello, best known for his records with Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and The Hold Steady. Crutchfield employed her sister Allison Crutchfield on keyboards and percussion, Katherine Simonetti on bass, Ashley Arnwine on drums and Katie Harkin on lead guitar. Agnello suggested that the band record most of the music live in the studio, which brings a heavier guitar element to Waxahatchee songs than ever found before.

“Never Been Wrong,” the album’s opener, makes this abundantly clear. A distorted, plunging riff form the backbone of the song as Crutchfield’s voice takes front and center in the verse. It’s an awesome loud-quiet-loud rock song, full of driving guitars, pummeling bass and an insistent beat. Plus, “Everyone will hear me complain/And everyone will pity my pain”is going to be a great refrain to sing live, an eternal wink-and-nod fuck you to whoever inspired it.

Songs like “Silver” sound like a blue-album era Weezer song with “woo-ooh” backing vocals and a muscular riff with a runaway lead guitar on top. Here, Crutchfield sings “If I turn to stone/The whole world keeps turning’/I went out in the storm/And I’m never returning”. The sound and “world has turned” lyric similarity aside, it’s a three-and-a-half-minute power-pop blast that sounds like being over a bad relationship and wanting to get away from it.

Despite the brawny sound of much of Out in the Storm, elements of Crutchfield’s earlier songwriting find a place here, albeit improved. Both “Recite Remorse” and “Sparks Fly” are built on beds of keys and percussion that wouldn’t sound out of place on Ivy Tripp, but here they feel less weightless and more grounded, something only a seasoned musician and performer could pull off. “Sparks Fly” with brushed drums and swirling acoustic guitar at the forefront is one of the album’s best songs, both a beautiful ballad and a showcase for Crutchfield to do what she does so wonderfully – write songs of pure emotionalism that convey both vulnerability and strength.

That’s not the only example. There are the moments that just plain break your heart, the plaintive and spare “A Little More”. It may be one of the best recent songs describing what it is like to fall out of love. “I move delicately/I slowly choose my words” she starts “when my presence is felt/I’ll fly away just like a bird/a jagged truth left unheard” hurt plenty. Then she illustrates what it’s like watching the flame go out. “And I live a little more/and I die a little more.” It’s an unforgettable moment.

Out in the Storm is the best work from a musician and songwriter who has grown up band-by-band, album-by-album in front of an audience through much of her adult life. Everything up until this point has shown Katie Crutchfield’s ability and brilliance, but finally, she’s created a work that’s a complete statement, a seminal work for longtime fans and a starting point for both new ones.

It’s an album that represents the point when Waxahatchee’s ambition and ability and confidence run alongside one another. Where she goes next is anyone’s guess. The bar has been raised. Out in the Storm sets it high. There’s no doubt to believe she meets it next time around.

Sheer Mag’s debut LP Need To Feel Your Love is not for cynics or the cold of heart—rather, this is music for humid summer nights and the kind of dumb, hopeless romanticism that you know you’re absolutely too old to be clinging to, but still keep tucked away, just in case. The band continues the grand tradition of cheap beer, dim lights and the kind of sneering but soulful approach to our beloved rock ‘n’ roll that’ll make you miss them well before the lights come up.

Much is been made (rightfully) of the band’s encyclopedic grasp of 20th century rock (and funk, and soul, and disco) tropes and tricks, and much like those bands of yore, whether not you get anything out of it in 2017 comes down to whether or not you want to.The good news? There’s plenty of reason to want to.

Frontwoman Tina Halladay’s showstopping vocal delivery is reason enough to hang around, and the rest of the band shifts stylistically on a dime—think of the best cover bands or classic rock DJs, and the way they can somehow convince you to mouth along to “Wonderwall” for the nth time once they’ve got the crowd where they want ‘em. That fluency is obvious from the start in the one-two punch of charging leadoff track “Meet Me In The Street” and the subsequent grooving title track.

Much like the best live performances, the band starts to relax and take more chances as time wears on. The latter half of the album sees more welcome stylistic divergences like “Pure Desire,” a slinkier, more laid-back affair that sounds, well, exactly like the title. Requisite Chill Song “‘Til You Find The One” showcases Halladay’s voice mostly without the reverb and distortion that it’s coated in for the other songs. Much like the band at large, it’s great to finally hear her mastery of her instrument outside of the more lo-fi sound of previous efforts.

Again, your mileage may vary, depending on your willingness to suspend disbelief and let the band take you where they will. If I were you, I’d hop in the backseat and let them steer for a while.

My wife and I were married on our college campus on a warm Saturday in August. It wasn’t a convenient spot for many of our guests, but they came anyway, arriving days, hours, minutes before the ceremony. As a reward of sorts for the early birds, Sarah and I hosted a karaoke party at one of our old haunts, a sports bar just on the edge of town. It was an incredible sight to see all our friends together, to join our cliques, to celebrate something powerful with music and beer and pretzel bites and wings. But, now, as I remember that night, I’m a little sad. I don’t know when, or if, all those people will ever be in a room again.

Since their establishment, Broken Social Scene were Canada’s musical Avengers*, putting members’ musical projects at the center of the indie world and creating some of the most jangly, expansive pop rock of the aughts. So, when BSS went on hiatus in 2010, their fans must have felt the same melancholy pang I did at the end of that hot August night, like some combination of air and light had left the room.

Luckily for those fans at least, the collective has finally returned with Hug of Thunder, an album that drops listeners right back into the melting pot of Toronto’s indie scene. The album has all the BSS hallmarks: melodies to spare, dissonant shifts in tone, and a shade of political and social rage that just colors the lyrics just enough to tap your maple tree.

That mellow ire is showcased on “Protest Song,” an album highlight that frames the end of a relationship as a sort of regime change. Emily Haines’ vocals, always a crucial ingredient in the BSS alchemy, are sweet and clear here, like harmonium keys. But when she starts cramming too many syllables into the chorus – “We’re just the latest in the longest rank and file list ever to exist in the history of the protest song” – the controlled chaos the band is known for rears its head to perfect effect.

Hug of Thunder absolutely soars when it plays content off context like that. Another track, “Gonna Get Better,” kicks off with the best lyrics on the album: “Future’s not what it used to be / we still got to go there”. The cynicism on display is tempered by the fact that the song sounds like Adele-produced-by-Aaron-Dessner. It feels like we’ve heard this song before as a kiss-off to a former lover, but it hits us in new ways by casting the world’s present political malaise as the ex.

Despite the bite, there’s still beauty on display. Some of the album’s strongest moments are when it slows down and lets you get lost in the soundscape. “Skyline” and “Please Take Me With You” are the winners here, and it’s impressive that after nearly twenty years as a band, BSS can still make simple lyrics like “Please take me with you / I want your heart” cut so deeply.

While coming back from a long break with songs this tight is a win, BSS newbies might find themselves at a loss with Hug; in the past seven years, a glut of more accessible lo-fi indie pop acts rushed to fill the broken Broken Social Scene scene. If Best Coast, Wavves or Alvvays are your touchstones for this kind of sound, the “so what” of this comeback could remain elusive. “Halfway Home” will have listeners punching air, but BSS doesn’t do the pure sugar hooks those bands built careers on. That’s not to say Hug of Thunder is a monotone slog – it’s not – but rather to point out that it rewards active listening. It’s sounds a little like the album cover looks: a bright white blur, with textures that come into focus as you get closer.

The record got me thinking about that night out at karaoke. As much as I would’ve loved to sing silly songs with my friends into eternity, all parties end. And as we all get older, we realize that what happens between parties matters just as much as what happens at them. But having everyone together that night reinvigorated a lot of relationships, just as a new BSS album always does. After all, the best part of their work is that when you’re done with it, you’re pumped to go catch up with projects from the whole crew – Kevin, Brendan, Metric, Feist, Stars, Len (sort of). The whole point of BSS is that the list goes on and the members of the collective have songs for you for days.

Hug of Thunder is a success for BSS, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of some of their earlier work. It reminds us why this band is special, and that it’s for the same reason that seeing all your friends at the bar, the reunion or around a picnic table in someone’s backyard is a lifting, shiny experience. This record is voices you know having conversations you’ve had before, just all a bit older and wiser. It reminds us that growing up isn’t so bad if you still remember to get together with friends now and then.

If you’re anything like most Americans (or, y’know, fans of civilization) these days, your mood probably swings wildly between blinding, bitter disgust, full-blown existential terror and the sense of being a burned out human husk with increasingly distant memories of a time when the future didn’t seem like something you needed to be terrified of.

The notion that we were gonna get through 2016, dust ourselves off and snap right back into a time before Everything Sucked Forever didn’t play out exactly how we hoped, huh? The world turns, people get born, people get dead, and there’s all that shit that goes on in between. But there’s a newly pervasive gallows humor that’s soaked into everyday life, since, well, how else are you gonna deal?

All this is to say that when Great Grandpa vocalist Alex Menne murmurs “All my friends are almost dead,” a minute or so into “All Things Must Behave” from their new LP Plastic Cough, you’ll get where she’s coming from.

The Seattle group is comprised of Menne, guitarist/vocalist Patrick Goodwin, bassist Carrie Miller, drummer Cam LaFlam, and guitarist Dylan Hanwright. Plastic Cough is a collection of songs that careen wildly from cautiously optimistic to burnout blues at about the same pace as the collective conscience of rational people who simply don’t want the world to end.

Menne’s voice has been rightfully compared to Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis (a compliment of the highest order), and really, the comparison is apt for most of the band’s offerings here—an array of gleefully bludgeoning fuzz riffs and strategically deployed dissonance. The production isn’t necessarily slick—it’s gently hazy, which imbues the upbeat but sinister shamble pop of singles “Teen Challenge” and “Expert Eraser” with a just-holding-together vibe that makes the band’s underlying pop sensibility all the more staggering.

Those tracks are catchy and fun, but standout track and second single “Fade” is something different altogether. Goodwin and Hanwright alternate between interlocking tapped melodic lines and slamming choruses while Menne puts on a contemporary rock vocal clinic. It’s a showcase for the entire band, but LaFlam and Miller deserve special notice for their ability to keep a groove, no matter how rollercoaster-like the arrangements get. There’s not a bass slide or snare crack out of place in the entire thing.

“[Fade] is about “the dulling of pleasure that comes with repeated exposure to the same experiences, locations, persons, etc. and the small ways in which we struggle — and often fail — to find newness,” the band told The FADER. “It’s the feeling of knowing you need to make a change but not being sure where to start, constantly looking for the next rush.” Sound familiar?

At the risk of spoiling the ending, if you can make it through “28 J’S L8R” without at least a hint of a smile on your face, well, maybe we are lost. In a world where everything means everything all the time and most of that meaning ends up being godawful, a song that’s funny and dumb feels like a desperately needed envoy from the world I want to live in.

About

This site has been a lot of things over time. A hub for my friends to write whatever they want, a web magazine, the home of The Eternal Mixtape Project, and for the better part of the last half-decade, a place for me to put whatever I’m thinking…occasionally.
It’s the longest-lasting creative endeavor I’ve ever had and I’m proud of the body of work that's here, both of my own and those who have contributed.
Enjoy.